Kinglake warning was delayed more than 2 hours

The Royal Commission into Victoria's bushfire disaster has heard excruciating details about why one particular warning was delayed.

An urgent threat message was ready to go out to the community of Kinglake shortly after 3:00pm but the message was not issued publicly until 5:55pm.

About half an hour later fire ripped through the town, killing 38 people.

Strathewen resident David Brown lost 10 thoroughbred horses in the fire.

Mr Brown told the commission he was surprised to hear in the days after the fires that senior authorities had early knowledge of the fire which claimed 27 people in his home town.

"So if they knew just after 1:30[pm] that that had happened and they knew because of their knowledge of the behaviour of fires that it was going to come out in Whittlesea and Arthurs Creek," he said.

"Arthurs Creek's eight kilometres from us, then what did they do with that information?"

Strathewen received no warning at all that it would be hit by fire.

But earlier in the day staff at the Country Fire Authority's (CFA) centre at Kangaroo Ground, north east of Melbourne, repeatedly drafted warnings for Kinglake.

The fire that was to bear down on Kinglake was officially being handled not by the Kangaroo Ground CFA, but the Incident Control Centre at Kilmore.

Today the senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Jack Rush, questioned CFA Operations Manager, Jason Lawrence, who was in charge at Kangaroo Ground on the day.

Mr Lawrence said he did not have the authority to sign issue warning messages for the fire.

"The warning messages are to be issued and signed off by the incident controller and as I wasn't allocated that role or unable to perform in that role, then I was not able to sign off on those information releases," he said.

Mr Lawrence told the Royal Commission he tried several times over the afternoon to contact those who did have the authority to issue warnings, the Kilmore ICC, but he could not get through.

"[The warning] wasn't released because... I wasn't the incident controller and not responsible for the release of that information but also in part because I couldn't contact the ICC up there to confirm that and hold those discussions," he said.

While the Kangaroo Ground CFA did not have any say in public warnings about the fire, there was nothing stopping Mr Lawrence passing on warnings for the power company SPAusnet, that some of its powerlines were about to be consumed by flames.

Mr Lawrence also faced questions about whether he passed on information he had gleaned from predictive maps and fire-tower reports to the CFA personnel who would face the brunt of it.

He said he was not aware of any communication with the captain of the Kinglake brigade warning him of the potential risk, prior to the fire reaching the area.

Despite the failure to get approval from the Kilmore incident Control Centre, a decision was made after 5:00pm that the urgent threat message should be released.

Late this afternoon the man who had unexpectedly been appointed the CFA's information officer for the Kilmore Incident Control Centre, Alexander Caughey, took the witness stand. Mr Caughey defended delays in getting messages to the public.

"Sir I suggest that I don't care how good the technology is, that nothing is as quick as standing on the back porch, looking around, seeing the smoke clouds and smelling the air and seeing the embers; that is by far the quickest source of information that people had," he said.

The CFA's site at Kangaroo Ground was given formal authority over the Kilmore fire early on the morning of Sunday February 8.